Man shares shocking tale of horror smash
Dan ‘‘Flannel’’ Mccown was trapped inside his wrecked van, dazed and paralysed, when he saw his two labradors leap to freedom out the front window.
There, at least, was some good news.
Mccown, a pump technician by trade, a 31-year old family man from Levin with three kids and a loving partner, has become an author of sorts, too.
In Burwood spinal unit in Christchurch, about to be reunited with his entire family for the first time since January, he wrote the story about the end of his first life, and the start of his second.
What he really wanted to say was thanks, and that, in the end, he would be OK.
Mccown was in an induced coma for weeks, and paralysed from the chest down after a threecar collision that closed State Highway 1 on the Kapiti Coast, north of Wellington, on January 17.
‘‘On January 17, I went to work like usual, although that day was the first time my two youngest kids hadn’t been with me in two weeks. Thank God.’’
About 9.30am, just south of Otaki, a car turning from a side road collided with his van – smashing it on its side into the path of an oncoming car that ‘‘hit hard in the top of my roof making it cave in on top of me’’. In the seconds after the smash was when the two labradors, Coco and Nugget, bolted out of the car.
Mccown, knew ‘‘instantly’’ things were bad. ‘‘I couldn’t feel my legs. I remember a lady from the ambo telling me, while holding my hand, that everything was going to be OK. All I could say was ‘I can’t feel my legs, it’s not going to be OK’.’’
Mccown said he was first flown to Wellington Hospital, with his mum, and then flown with partner Jodie Preston to Christchurch – headed to Burwood, but then, as his oxygen levels dropped, Christchurch Hospital’s intensive care unit.
His spine was broken in two places. All his ribs were broken, both lungs collapsed, his left collar bone snapped in half, his left ear sliced in half, and he almost lost his left eye completely. Police are investigating the crash.